Chapter 6: "Parting Ways with You"

Just as the little girl was about to catch up with the two of them, Xi Yan suddenly steered the flying carpet into a rapid dive. The little girl hadn’t anticipated this move, so she didn’t close in immediately—and in that moment, Xi Yan and Qu Ya had already landed. As soon as their feet touched the ground, they darted into an abandoned shack. Moments later, the little girl arrived, and as her winged horse landed, a flash of golden light transformed it into the muscular man so familiar to Xi Yan.

Now, inside the derelict shack, Xi Yan and Qu Ya watched the girl’s movements through a tiny window. As Xi Yan shifted his hand along the wall, he accidentally grazed something sharp, opening a small cut that bled slightly. Examining the wall more closely, he found a pale card wedged there. He plucked it out and glanced at its name.

“Farewell to You”—the name piqued Xi Yan’s curiosity.

To learn a card’s abilities, he knew he had to add it to his control panel. The process was simple: the user only needed to hold the card and focus on storing it. Besides cards dropped from the Fallen, and those gained through instances, there was a rarer method: cards that manifested naturally in the Survival Zone. Such occurrences were unpredictable, their positions unmarked and the creation rate vanishingly low—few had ever encountered one.

Xi Yan added the card to his control panel, and its function became clear:

“Farewell to You:

I remember the parting, tears falling as I saw you out the door.
Do you recall the pain of that year, when we could not meet, could not be together?
Effect: Allows the user and one teammate (maximum of two people) to hide their presence from all detection cards.
Grade: S
Uses: Permanent (no durability loss)”

Seeing the effect, Xi Yan broke into a smile. Qu Ya, still on high alert, looked at him in confusion—but in the next instant, she slapped a hand over Xi Yan’s mouth and pinned him against the wall.

“Hush, Qing Yan’s coming!”

Qing Yan? Who was that? Xi Yan’s face was full of questions, but Qu Ya gave him no chance to speak, holding him tightly to prevent even the slightest sound.

Suddenly, footsteps echoed outside the door—one slow and light, the other heavy. The little girl and the muscular man, Xi Yan thought wryly, what a pair.

With a creak, the door opened a crack and light spilled in. Qu Ya tensed, rising to stand protectively in front of Xi Yan. Then the door swung open completely. The little girl stood before them, grinning mischievously. “You two are pretty quick! I’ve been looking for you for ages.”

“Qing Yan! With your current status and power, there’s no need for you to kill Xi Yan,” Qu Ya forced herself to remain calm as she looked at the girl.

Now Xi Yan understood who Qing Yan was.

Qing Yan covered her mouth, giggling adorably—but to Qu Ya, that smile was pure terror. She knew exactly how Qing Yan killed.

“Why not kill him? Who ever thinks they have too much of a good thing?”

No sooner had she finished speaking than the muscular man lunged forward. Qu Ya braced herself to defend Xi Yan with her life—no one knew why she was so determined to protect him.

But the next moment, Qu Ya was stunned.

Qing Yan frowned in puzzlement, and the muscular man, having charged up, stopped short in front of them, frozen in place, unmoving. Qing Yan stepped closer, examining the scene, then drew out a card. After unlocking it, her expression darkened, her face growing so cold it sent chills through the room.

“Very impressive, Xi Yan, Qu Ya,” she ground out between clenched teeth. Then she issued a command to the muscular man, “Goldie, destroy this place!”

With that, Qing Yan turned and left, her pink silhouette receding into the distance. Once she was gone, the muscular man began tearing the shack apart.

By then, Xi Yan was already pulling Qu Ya along the wall, slipping out of the ruined house and into another, even more dilapidated one—hardly more than four crumbling walls. Before they could settle down to catch their breath, Qu Ya, still shaken, asked, “What just happened? How did we get away?”

Xi Yan smiled mysteriously, then told Qu Ya about discovering “Farewell to You.”

“This card is really something. Here, you can have it,” Xi Yan said, holding it out to her. But Qu Ya refused without hesitation.

“No need. You need it more than I do,” she insisted, pushing his hand back.

Aside from cards that could be named, all others could be given away freely. Named cards, once bound, could not be used by anyone else, even if stolen.

“So you used this card to help us escape just now?” Qu Ya sounded skeptical. After all, Qing Yan was ranked among the top ten killers of the Main City. It seemed unlikely she’d be thwarted by a mere stealth card.

Xi Yan thought for a moment and decided to explain the card’s true effect to Qu Ya, since he had intended to give it to her anyway.

When Qu Ya learned what the card could do, she could only laugh ruefully. “Xi Yan, your luck is unbelievable. Naturally generated cards are almost impossible to find, and you just happened to get an S-grade one?”

Xi Yan wasn’t sure if it was simply luck, but then he remembered his own ability—“Almost There.” Connecting the dots, he realized the card’s appearance might be linked to his power.

“I think… it’s probably my ability,” Xi Yan mused.

“Your ability?” Qu Ya raised her eyebrows, not quite understanding.

“Yes, my ability is… in the luck category,” Xi Yan replied.

Qu Ya didn’t press further, simply sat slumped against the wall, deep in thought. “You’ve been marked now. They won’t let you leave the Ninth Survival Zone alive. Finding the Examiner will be even harder.”

Hearing mention of the Examiner, Xi Yan recalled someone named Bai Ke. He looked at Qu Ya, puzzled. “Isn’t that Bai Ke your friend? Shouldn’t we be worried about him?”

“Him? No need—he’ll be fine. For now, we need to focus on rescuing Lin. Since finding the Examiner just got harder, let’s start tackling instances instead. After all, you’re the master of the Ninth Survival Zone, so you should be able to earn points more easily.”